EUGENE, Ore. — Oregon ran a play about every 14 seconds last year. The pace became as famous as its Milan runway closet of uniforms. But quarterback Darron Thomas said it wasn’t fatigue that got to defenses.

“The secret is a lot of teams get in the newspaper before they play us saying, ‘We’ve got to be physically prepared. We’ve got to run extra,’” he told me. “It’s not about that. It’s not about the fatigue. It’s about how are you going to be when you get tired mentally.

“We’re going to line up again fast. If you don’t line up fast, you won’t get your keys. People say, ‘We’re only going to have three defenses this week so we’ll be able to move quick.’ But it’s how long you’re going to make the right keys.”

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

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EUGENE, Ore. — Nearing the end of a spectacular tour of the gorgeous Pac-12 I’d compare with some pleasure cruises I’ve read about, I sat down Sunday with one of the stars of college football. Darron Thomas is the quarterback who helped make Oregon one of the most feared offenses in history.

The Ducks led the nation in total offense (530.69 yards per game) and scoring (47 points per game) and only Stanford’s Andrew Luck had a better rating in the Pac-10 than Thomas (150.97).

Thomas is back and so is tailback LaMichael James, a Heisman finalist. They will lead Oregon into Folsom Field Oct. 22. I asked Thomas if Oregon’s frantic pace would work a mile high.

“I thought, ‘Man, we’re going to play them so late in the season,’” he said. “I don’t think about the feet, like you said. I think about the weather. Is it going to be 12 degrees?”

No, it won’t. He should know. He made a recruiting visit to Oregon out of Houston’s Aldine High School in 2007.

“What I was thinking about Colorado was we’ll play at their house,” he said. “Man their fans go crazy in all black.”

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

PULLMAN, Wash. — It’s natural for struggling coaches to emphasize the slim pickings they inherited. However, in Paul Wulff’s case, the cupboard at Washington State wasn’t just bare. The cupboards were gone, too.

Entering his fourth year, Wulff is 5-32. He has beaten Portland State, Washington, SMU, Montana State and Oregon State.

But among the long list of problems he found when he took over in 2008 were: He’s 6-3 and he stood taller than all but three linemen. They had no mandatory weight training. He lost eight scholarships to a bad APR.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

PULLMAN, Wash. — I grew up in Oregon, went to Oregon, worked in suburban Seattle for a year and a half and have covered college sports for 20 years. Yet I’d never been to Pullman, Wash.

Many wisened Pac-10 writers, fans and coaches have said that’s like saying I’ve had many great massages but have never experienced waterboarding. So Pullman was never on my bucket list.

But it was an inevitable stop on this Pac-12 Carwriters tour and like Arizona’s shoddy facilities and Dennis Erickson’s verve, Pullman surprised me. Folks, it’s not that bad. Then again, I’m coming from the Big 12, Big Eight and a lot of the SEC. In some regard, in going to Pullman I moved up in class.

The Pac-12 on Thursday announced it will partner with the New Mexico Bowl next season, one year sooner than expected, for a game that will pit the seventh-best team in the Pac-12 against one from the Mountain West.

The Pac-12 had come to an agreement with the New Mexico Bowl for 2012, but after the bowl dropped its WAC tie-in, the new marriage was moved up.

A 6-6 record likely would punch a Pac-12 ticket to Albuquerque. Southern Cal is ineligible for the postseason, leaving 11 teams in the conference to fight for bids. Colorado is coming off a 5-7 record last season, but will join the Pac-12 this year under new coach Jon Embree.

Colorado State, which went 3-9 in 2010 but returns sophomore QB Pete Thomas, won the New Mexico Bowl in 2008 over Fresno State and has a natural, regional draw in New Mexico.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

CORVALLIS, Ore. — How far down has Oregon State been? When athletic director Bob De Carolis came aboard as an associate athletic director in 1998, he was told in the interview process that the athletic department was $6 million in the hole.

“On my third day on the job, $6 million became $10 million,” De Carolis said. “In the third month, it became $12.5 million.”

They had 27 straight years without a winning football season and sold only 17,000 season football tickets. Enrollment was 13,000.

Since Mike Riley started his second coaching stint in 1997, they’ve gone 6-3 in bowls and enrollment has shot up to 25,000.

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CORVALLIS, Ore. — I asked Oregon State athletic director Bob De Carolis how in the world Oregon State won two national baseball titles. The Beavers’ titles in 2006 and 2007 were the first by a northern school since Ohio State won it in 1966.

A huge boost came in 1999 when the Pac-10 switched from North and South divisions to one conference. Before, Oregon State played in a Mickey Mouse North Division with Washington, Washington State and Portland State.

“Kids who got passed up by the California schools wanted to beat them,” De Carolis said.

Please note: Colorado will be the only school in the Pac-12 not playing baseball.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

CORVALLIS, Ore. — I came to Oregon State’s campus for the first time since my junior year at the Oregon Daily Emerald in 1976 when I covered coach Don Read’s last game at Oregon. Back then, both Oregon State and Oregon had facilities that weren’t much better than my South Eugene High. That’s because my high school played at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium.

And our crowds sometimes rivaled Oregon’s.

Well, you know what has happened since. Oregon alum Phil Knight opened his pocket for Oregon and built arguably the best facilities in college football. The end result was last season’s national runnerup finish.

Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen at the Buffaloes' spring game on April 9.

Well, at least the rebuilding Buffaloes aren’t picked to finish last in their Pac-12 debut this fall.

I picked up a copy of the Sporting News’ 2011 College Football magazine (these preseason yearbooks seem to be published earlier every year) and saw that CU was picked for fifth in the Pac-12 South Division, ahead of UCLA, which is coached by former Buffs boss Rick Neuheisel.

The league’s other newbie, Utah, is picked by the Sporting News to win the South, followed in order by Arizona State, Southern Cal, Arizona, CU and UCLA.

Stanford is projected as the North Division winner, followed in order by Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, California and Washington State.

EUGENE, Ore. — Greetings from my hometown, site of my alma mater and home to the defending national runners-up. A perfect place to talk to USC coach Lane Kiffin.

I missed him last week in L.A., but I reached him by phone Tuesday. The timing could’ve been better. It was one day after the BCS took away the Trojans’ 2004 national title. In L.A., it’s an old story. Everyone knew it would happen.

But why it happened still gets under Kiffin’s craw. He was the co-offensive coordinator in ’04 when potential agents for his star tailback, Reggie Bush, gave his parents a new house. Penalty? Losing 30 scholarships over three years, never having more than 70 instead of 85, no bowls for two years.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

BERKELEY, Calif. — When Colorado plays again at Cal in 2013, don’t bother renting a car. Do this: Stay in San Francisco and take Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) across San Francisco Bay to Berkeley.

You can take the Bay Point Line to the Rock Ridge Station in Berkeley, then take a bus up College Avenue to Memorial Stadium. Or you can take the Richmond Line to the Berkeley station and walk five blocks.

Parking is a major hassle in Berkeley and San Francisco. Do not rent. Besides, you can text a lot more in a subway than a car.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

BERKELEY, Calif. — Scratch all that talk that Colorado won’t be overwhelmed by the Pac-12’s mediocre facilities. Cal is about to go from the conference outhouse to a room with a view, right below Oregon’s penthouse suite.

After five years of wishes, speculation, protests, injunctions and signs of relief, Cal is building a $150 million, 26,000-square-foot high-performance center and a undergoing a $321 million renovation of venerable Memorial Stadium.

I took a tour of it all and you can easily see past all the steel girders, empty door frames and dusty floors under construction that it’s going to be a palace. For starters, the high-performance center will house football and 12 Olympic sports.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — It was a miserable, drizzly day Monday here in the Bay Area, but Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott was still in his office basking in the sun. His national TV deal surpassed revenue projections and he has his inaugural Pac-12 Championship football game set for this year.

His next goal might be more difficult. He wants to increase the amount of an athlete’s scholarship so they have a little more at the end of the month. It’s not a knee-jerk reaction to the disastrous fire sale Ohio State players held which got Jim Tressel fired.

Instead, he told me in his office, “It’s an issue of principle for me.”

The Mountain West's new logo -- which the conference has nicknamed "The Rock."

The Mountain West Conference unveiled a, um, different logo — and even gave that logo a nickname.

In a press release, the conference claims the logo signals in the ushering in of “a new era in the 13-year history of the Mountain West.” The MWC also saved fans the trouble of trying to come up with a nickname for the logo. The conference has dubbed it “The Rock.”

“This initiative is emblematic of the evolution of our league,” MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said in the release. “The overwhelming majority of the people we spoke to said the Mountain West is bold, feisty and highly competitive, and we strongly believe these qualities are reflected in our new brand identity and our new logo.”

The new logo will be worn by all of the conference’s teams and be displayed on playing surfaces across the league.

The MWC’s website said: “Since its inception in 1999, the Mountain West has been at the forefront of progress and innovation.”

You know, like Thomas Edison and IBM.

“Today, we’re taking it one step further.”

The new logo coincided with the unveiling of the league’s new tagline: “This is our time.” A new website is planned for a July release.

The Mountain West this summer will lose BYU (to independence in football, and to the West Coast Conference in all other sports) and Utah (to the Pac-12). TCU leaves for the Big East in 2012.

Taking those spots in the MWC are Boise State (2011), Nevada (2012), Fresno State (2012) and Hawaii (2012).

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Looking for a place to stay for the UCLA game Nov. 19? Stay in one of the beach communities: Marina del Rey, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach. Any of them are good.

Here’s why: The competition means you can occasionally find a good deal and no tailgate party in the world beats southern California’s pre-game ritual of jogging along the beach.

This morning I drove about a mile from my Residence Inn here to Manhattan Beach where I threw my wallet in the glove compartment and jogged along the strand. This area may have awful public transportation but you can’t beat two parallel paths along the beach: one for jogging/walking and another for biking.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

LOS ANGELES — If you come down for the Colorado-UCLA game Nov. 19, you’ll have to make separate trips to UCLA’s campus and the game. The Rose Bowl is in Pasadena, 30 miles away.

But come to UCLA just to see the new addition to its Hall of Fame. They have recreated the den of fabled basketball coach John Wooden, who died last June at 99.

It looks just like his den in the Encino apartment he lived in since 1973. There’s the overstuffed chair with the blue and yellow UCLA blanket over the side. The bookshelf with the book, “Indiana’s 20 Most Dominant Players” resting on its side. His rolltop desk with his set of two fountain pens. Framed pictures of his 10 national championship teams, all in the shape of his Pyramid of Success.

Curator Emily Green did a remarkable job on making it just as it was. I know. I interviewed Wooden in that same den four years ago.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — One plus the Big 12 has over the Pac-12 isn’t quite, shall we say, as down to earth as the Midlands. The first question I’m always asked when I meet someone is “What do you do?” (read: How much do you make?)

Appropriately, a snapshot of L.A. is like one continuous camera commercial: Image is everything. Just yesterday on the sports radio talk show “Max and Marcellus,” Max Kellerman and Marcellus Wiley debated L.A.’s most profound puzzle in life: “Who is the coolest cat in sports?”

The theory is if you don’t know who’s the coolest, then you’re not cool. If you know who’s the coolest, then you’re cool. And if you’re truly cool, you’re too cool to show you’re cool.

You’re cool if you look cool, if you act cool and, more importantly, if everyone thinks you’re cool. Cool is a cool commodity here and if you don’t care if you’re cool then you’ve succeeded because you’re not cool.

Who did the cool dudes think are cool? Pat Riley, Derek Jeter, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan. Riley is cool because he wears cool Armani suits and has cool hair. Winning titles in L.A. and Miami is cool but not that cool.

If you disagree that they’re cool, no one here cares that you don’t think they’re cool. Because you’re not cool.

TUCSON — I saw a familiar face while roaming the halls of Arizona’s football offices. Ryan Walters, the four-year starter at safety for Colorado, is in his first year as secondary coach after serving last year as a grad assistant. At 25, he’s the youngest full-time assistant in the Pac-12.

Walters, a Grandview High grad, coached last year under Greg Brown who coached him at Colorado. Brown returned to Boulder this year to become defensive coordinator.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

TUCSON — At one time this place had the most feared defense in the land. In 1992 it held opponents to 65 yards rushing per game. The next year that dropped to 30. That’s almost inconceivable. Sure they were in the pass-happy Pac-10 but it’s not like they were playing Hawaii every game.

It was the height of Desert Swarm, Arizona’s famed defense anchored by Ted Bruschi and a bunch of other overachievers few other schools wanted. Get ready for Desert Swarm II. Arizona coaches aren’t labeling it that. They aren’t changing the scheme. But they’re trying to create the same insane, violent, defensive mentality it had in the early ’90s.

The Denver Post’s John Henderson is visiting each Pac-12 town before Colorado joins the conference next season. Follow his travels here.

TUCSON — If Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn felt like a pauper in a league of kings when he toured Big 12 facilities, he’ll feel middle class in the Pac-12. I spent today in Tucson where second-year athletic director Greg Byrne is trying to get the board of regents next month to approve $72 million to fund a new complex on the north end of the football stadium.

“I don’t know about every other school,” Byrne told me, “but I don’t know of any other BCS school that still has their football operation in the basketball arena.”

True. To talk to the football coaches, I had to walk inside the McKale Center where they held a youth girls volleyball camp, climb to the top level and enter a back door. The coaches’ offices look out to their practice field. It’s a nice practice field but Colorado assistants have better views.

Arizona’s facilities are shockingly archaic. Every Olympic sport has its office in a dank tunnel that encircles McKale’s basketball court. Every one looks identical. Until the late ’90s, the sports information department was in a trailer. Now it’s in the bowels of the McKale Center.